TamsIJungle

Apple’s iPhone has been said to have various call quality-related eekers especially when used on AT&T’s traditionally overloaded network.

So far, so good – but the story below sounds a bit mind-boggling (via Gizmodo):

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Giz reader Manoj took his iPhone to the Genius Bar to have it looked at because it was dropping calls left and right, … stat dump, the Genius showed Manoj that his iPhone had actually dropped 22 percent of calls.
The jawdropper: The Genius told Manoj that’s actually excellent compared to most people in the New York area, where a 30 percent dropped call rate is the average. There was nothing Apple could do for Manoj.
…

Even though all of this could be an artificial ruckus raised to generate extra advertising budget (these things do happen), Apple and AT&T have been surprisingly silent on the topic.

This could very well mean that there is some truth to the story – how has your iPhone experience gone so far?

Apple’s press department has recently sent out an announcement claiming that two billion applications have been downloaded from the iTunes App Store since its launch.

As the release contains some very interesting figures, it is reposted below for your enjoyment:

CUPERTINO, California—September 28, 2009—Apple® today announced that more than two billion apps have been downloaded from its revolutionary App Store, the largest applications store in the world. There are now more than 85,000 apps available to the more than 50 million iPhone™ and iPod touch® customers worldwide and over 125,000 developers in Apple’s iPhone Developer Program.

“The rate of App Store downloads continues to accelerate with users downloading a staggering two billion apps in just over a year, including more than half a billion apps this quarter alone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The App Store has reinvented what you can do with a mobile handheld device, and our users are clearly loving it.”

Today, iPhone and iPod touch customers in 77 countries worldwide can choose from an incredible range of apps in 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel. With the recently introduced iTunes® 9, it’s now easier than ever to organize and sync your apps right in iTunes and they will automatically appear on your iPhone or iPod touch with the same layout.

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Any further questions?

This email recently was sent out to each and every user on Apple’s mailing list:

No words needed IMHO…

Aah, the fun – after Orange’s announcement of a deal with Apple which would allow it to carry the iPhone, both VodaFone and O2 have responded. Their relative responses are below:

O2
O2, better known as Telefonica, had the iPhone exclusively up to now. Their statement reads as follows:

We’re proud that we’ve been able to offer an exclusive iPhone deal to our 20 million customers for the last two years. We always knew that iPhone exclusivity was for a limited period of time, but our relationship with Apple continues and will be an ongoing success. We have over 1million iPhone customers and they remain very important to us.

We aim to offer our customers the best devices on the market, including becoming the home of Smartphones and we are really pleased to now add another device in the Palm Pre. We also offer award-winning customer service and benefits, which is why more people choose O2 than any other network in the UK.

VodaFone
VodaFone, on the other hand, has no iPhone – and has now joined the club:

Vodafone and Apple today confirmed that they have reached agreement to bring iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS to the UK and Ireland in early 2010.

Beginning today, Vodafone UK and Vodafone Ireland customers can register their interest in iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS at www.vodafone.co.uk/iphone and www.vodafone.ie/iphone respectively. Pricing, tariffs and availability information will be announced locally in the future.

Vodafone now offers iPhone through thirteen of its operating companies.

This leaves us with but two missing carriers: T-Mobile and Hutchison. Hutchison Italy is already selling the iPhone, as are T-Mobile Germany and Austria…

Orange Austria has been selling Apple’s iPhone for some time, and has been somewhat successful with it. This seems to have motivated Orange UK to follow suite – they have just posted a teaser page with the following statement:

Orange UK and Apple have reached an agreement to bring iPhone 3G and 3GS to Orange UK customers later this year. Orange globally now offers iPhone in 28 countries and territories.

Orange, which has the largest 3G network covering more people in the UK than any other operator, will sell iPhone in all Orange direct channels including Orange shops, the Orange webshop and Orange telesales channels, as well as selected high street partners. A pre-registration site for customers to log their interest has been launched at www.Orange.co.uk/iPhone

More information on pricing, tariffs and availability dates will be released in due course.

Not much more to add here…

So far, scientific calculators for smartphones and PDA’s were the domain of third parties. However, both HP and Texas Instruments have felt like taking a share of the iPhone market – TI’s release reads as follows:

Texas Instruments today announced its BAII Plus App is available on the App Store. The BAII Plus App for iPhone and iPod touch gives business professionals and students a feature-packed financial calculator on the go.

“Customers told us they want fewer electronic devices to carry around, but they still want a powerful calculator handy in their day-to-day lives,” said Melendy Lovett, president of Texas Instruments Education Technology business. “The new BAII Plus calculator app for iPhone and iPod touch meets that need while continuing to offer all of the features that make the BAII Plus one of the most popular financial calculators available today.”

Designed to take advantage of the revolutionary features of iPhone and iPod touch, including the innovative Multi-Touch user interface, the BAII Plus App is for anyone who simply needs to make short work of simple math or complex financial equations. The app is equipped with all the original calculator’s features, including tools to help financial professionals do equations in seconds that used to take minutes – all on one device. The app also solves accrued interest, amortization, cost-sell-margin, depreciation and time-value-of-money calculations, such as annuities, mortgages, leases and savings.

The BAII Plus App is available for $14.99 from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.

As of now, no further information is available – stay tuned!

Apple and AT&T have just released their long-awaited MMS update for the iPhone 3G and 3Gs. A knowledge base article has been posted which explains the updating process:

Summary

MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) is now available to AT&T customers on the following iPhone models*:

* iPhone 3G
* iPhone 3GS

Follow the steps in this article to update your iPhone and enable MMS.

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Before going send-bonkers, please allow me to remind you that MMS is an extremely bad deal for you. 100KB cost about 1 Euro in Austria – which can buy you up to 1GB or more of regular data traffic.

Yours truly has never sent a single MMS in his whole life, and urges you to do the same!

Further information can be had here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3880

Apple’s iPhone is one of the very few handsets which have not supported MMS at release. While Apple initially wasn’t interested, they have since seen that carriers need MMS as a cheap source of revenue – it looks like their long-time partner AT&T will finally roll out an official MMS application.

Various news sites report users receiving SMS similar to the one shown on the left. Looks like the roll-out is closing in – stay tuned for further info as we get it!

Various sites have claimed prices for the TomTom car kit – which has promoted the manufacturer to release the following clarification:

TomTom unveils the price of the TomTom car kit for the iPhone

London, 24 September 2009 – TomTom announces today that the TomTom car kit for the iPhone will have a recommended retail price of £99.99

The TomTom car kit will be available this October and will be sold separately from the TomTom app. It will be compatible with the iPhone 2G, 3G and 3GS.

All further details on the car kit will be made available soon.

As of now, no further info is available…

So far, South Korean legislation has prevented Apple from releasing its iPhone into the country – the box did not use enough domestic technologies.

However, it looks like this will change soon. The Wall Street Journal reports the following:

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The Korea Communications Commission made an exception to a rule that requires cellphones sold in the country to use domestic technology for location-based services such as GPS. The commission’s action comes after months of consumer pressure. South Korea has long stood out as one of the few technically advanced countries that doesn’t allow the iPhone.

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As of now, no further information is available…

Image: Wikimedia Commons / ASDFGH